A couple noob (not that much I hope) questions

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

I've started playing this gruesome game 3 weeks ago and I'm totally addicted. I'm now kicking arses in monarch like 4/5 times and I feel I need some tips to progress further; I hope I won't bore anyone to death and that the following will help more people.

First off, grats on the site, this is the best gaming site I've seen yet, and the info is unbelievably nice. No way I would have beaten regent so fast without it, keep it up.

So 1. Is there any chart for optimal city number (OCN) per gov per world size?

2. What actually is the republic's commerce increase?

3. Has anyone ever seen any use to feudalism, xcept maybe making a 40 swordsmen/knights army early in the middle ages with 8-9 towns on a tiny map and pay a brutal conquest ?

4. Do big abandonned cities give workers when abandonned, if / even if you did not have any current shields produced (might sound dumb but I'd think it logical that you need shields in the bar to dish out workers)

5. Why are AI's so reluctant to paying gpt agreements on tech, early on?

6. Is there a way to fix the fact tyhat americans, inca and iroquois are featured in 95% of my all random games?

7. Is a granary generally, absolutely or dependingly wanted in your first city? in your settler factory #1 (base settlement or best spot found nearby) ?

8. How many workers do you m,ake, normally? I tend to go a bit less than 1 per city until I pumped enough settlers to cover all the area I'm in(so settler pumping is not hindered), then go a bit lower than 1.5/city until everything is nice and clean, then less than 1 per city again after railroads are done; that good?

9. How can you prevent a gracious AI from bashing onto you when you've been trading for a long time and then he decides it is time to get the money off his Zeus/Templars massive army of gg?

10. I'm a fan or circular city placement, and stopped using optimal city placement when I was playing regent (I was like wow, AI's suck all of a sudden). I have no trouble with those concepts and usually manage to adapt rather well to the map I'm on, though I don't get the ICS thingy: is it like making a huge lot of cities with like 4 to 6 proper squares and make a lot of stuff, slowly, from each? I know it must have some power somehow, I just can't manage to do it well without knowing what it's about. Oh and then, how would OCN work against it?

11. I play very scientifical and expansionnistly, is it bad? Should I preset a plan once my surroundings are scouted and stick to it all game(ie start culturing up from the bronze age, making troops, research-rushing libraries ...) or just play an open style and see how it goes?

12. I most often pick monarchy-commy or repub-demo for my govs, depending on wether I play militaristic or something else. I never used fascism. Should I (given I play verly large empires all the time) use it when my core cities are really big and I placed them like optimal-fashion so they dish a 200ish prod (with plants I guess I could make it there) or stick to commie and have all my cities build a bit slower?

13. Do you guys use different openings depending on your game focus, like making all offensive units if you are the mongols on a pangea from scratch because you know you're gonna up them to swords and go battling it out, stuff like that?

14. Aren't you sick of me talking that fkin much

THANKS A LOT !!! all feedback appreciated, though I don't expect all of those to be answered

 

[Whomp]

Welcome to CFC Beorn.
I'll start with #6 Are you playing culturally linked start? If so turn it off and all the N. American and South American Civs will not show up together.

 

[Bluemofia]

4. No. I abandoned a size 6 city to stop the mongols from getting it. Nothing.

5. because they can't afford it.

6. RNG strikes again.

7. It is for me.

8. early game 1 per city. Late game, so many slaves, it dosen't matter.

14. Maybe...


BTW, Welcome to CFC

 

[gunnerxtr]

6. is because you have Culturally Linked started posistions on and that is a bug that makes the North American civs appear in all games

5. is probably because they dont have any money. AI normally doesnt have money to spare till the late middle ages

 

[mudfoot]

First off, a welcome from me too!

1) I saw a table somewhere, but I can't easily find it! I think I have something better though, e.g. an OCN calculater (by lbhhh and Talar)

2) IIRC, both Republic and Democracy get a 1 commerce/gold increase per tile already producing commerce. For example, a roaded river tile will have 2 gold in any goverment except in Rep. and Dem. where it will have 3 gold (if not in a Golden Age or worked by a city with the Collosus).

11) I almost always play an open game myself, except when I inflict some extra condition on myself, e.g. Always War

12) I haven't use Fascism myself yet. In fact, in my current AW game, I switched to Communism for the first time (in C3C at least - didn't like it in Vanilla) and I absolutely love it!

13) Always take possible upgrades into account when building military units, but also take into account that that early in the game a massive upgrade might well be way to expensive!
I didn't understand this question very well, so if I'm answering besides the point, forgive me!

 

[Zakharov]

1. The easiest way is to check the editor program. Look under the rules section.

2. Any tile that produces at least one commerce will produce one more.

3. Feudalism is only useful if the majority of your towns are size 6 or less. You will have a far more productive empire by switching to Republic or Monarchy and growing your towns to size 7+ cities.

5. They are putting all of their income into research. They cannot offer gpt to you until they have a positive income, which usually won't happen until the middle ages. Similarly, you cannot offer gpt to the AI if you do not have a positive income.

6. As Whomp and gunnerxtr have said, you need to turn off culturally linked starts.

7. I always build a granary in a city that is going to build settlers, which in most cases is my first city.

8. You should keep pumping out workers until you have no more land to improve. When that happens you should get some more land. Two workers per city is a minimum, but I will usually have even more than that.

9. What kind of deal do you have? If the AI is paying you gpt then they will declare on you if they can no longer afford the payments. If this isn't the case then the best way to deter the AI is to have a strong offensive military. Attacking units are much stronger than equivalent defensive ones in the eyes of the AI.

10. ICS is where you place cities as close as possible, ie. there is only one tile gap between each one. Corruption will become a problem very quickly with this strategy.

I find the best way is to give each city 12 tiles to work as I rarely build hospitals.

11. The best way to play is to have a victory goal in mind near the beginning and stick to it. This is especially true if you are aiming for a cultural win.

14. Aren't you sick of me talking that fkin much

Don't worry about it. We all had to start somewhere, plus you are asking some very valid questions.

 

[Scuffer]

2. Any tile that produces at least one commerce will produce one more.

Just to add that roads give commerce, so roading a tile that usually produces 0 gold, gives you 2 in republic. Road every worked tile.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Wow thanks a lot, I'll put that to work. I however have some new ones to ask now

I find the best way is to give each city 12 tiles to work as I rarely build hospitals.

A) Is it to decrease pollution or just so you don't have to build hospitals and can make more cities?

B) 2 workers per town ... do you make them off of every town you can get a spare pop point off, or generally out of 2-3 high food pumpers? Sounds like a good idea (work now reap later always works) but as I see it, it does hinder your settler prod. How do you make up for it?

C) What I meant by 13 is that I believe I play too vaguely, and since my mind bugs me to comparing this to chess, I find it problematic to try and do many things not as well as one thing that puts you up top. I guess I was answered well enough by Mr Zakh though.

D) Does offensive units value - AI point of view - is enough so I should put swordsmen/archers in my core towns for MP, and the AI will be fooled into thinking I'm too strong to be attacked?

E) I've started many wars with a settler/def-infantry drop on strategic ressources tiles, and it did work for me a number of times in regent. The case has not yet happened to me lately, and I was wondering wether or not I should repeat the feat at higher levels, and if I should consider putting it to use for luxuries as well.

F) OMFG you guys are awesome, thanks again

 

[Zakharov]

A) The main reason I only let my cities grow to size 12 is because the most important part of the game is played before hospitals are available. The key to winning the game is the first 100 turns, (though it is possible to recover a game later in some cases).

During the first 100 turns you want to be working as many tiles as possible, which cannot be done if you space your cities out too loosely. It is also a perfectly acceptable strategy to build your cities even closer together than my 12 tile pattern (eg. ICS) though I find this causes corruption to escalate too quickly for my liking.

As you mention, I find a positive result of this strategy is that size 12 cities do not produce any pollution due to population, so there is no need to build mass transit systems later on. You also have a lot less whack-a-mole to be done with pollution cleaning, so you can spend your time making strategic decisions instead.

B) Two workers per town is a target rather than a constant number. For example, when I have only 3 cities I will of course be concentrating on settlers so I will only have 3 or 4 workers. Once the expansion phase is over I will start pumping out workers to get me up to at least 3 per city.

When your cities stop growing you should peel off a worker. You should also find a city with high food but low shield production to build a worker every 2 or 3 turns. Another thing I like to do is build a worker asap in every new town I settle.

D) You should have some defensive units in your military, just make sure they don't dominate the total. For example, don't put 4 pikemen in every town and build only 10 knights. It is much better to have 1 or 2 strong defensive units in your border towns and keep a large number of attacking units around to be used when needed. If you need MP units in your core you can use any type of unit, even obsolete warriors.

Another tip: when the AI attacks your cities they will send mainly offensive units with low defensive stats. It is best to attack them before they get to your cities as you will have a much better kill ratio.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

2. What the others have said is correct, Republic is +1 income for every square that's already producing at least one gold.
If you switch to Republic from Despotism (which I hope is often the case), a special instance accurs that may well be the reason why you're wondering. Say you have a roaded sugar tile by a river. This tile gives only 2 gold in Despo, but increases to 4 gold in Republic. So if a tile is producing 3 (-1) gold in Despo, the increased income from that tile is +2 when switching to Republic.

E) While this may be necessary in extreme cases, I'm not sure what it does to AI attitude and deal signing. Anyone?

 

[Scuffer]

E) While this may be necessary in extreme cases, I'm not sure what it does to AI attitude and deal signing. Anyone?

Presumably you'd get the extra hit from having units on the other person's soil when declaring, don't know of any other penalty.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Presumably you'd get the extra hit from having units on the other person's soil when declaring, don't know of any other penalty.

Well, in Bamspeedy's article in the War academy, he mentions an increased attitude hit if you ROP rape. He doesn't mention what happens if you declare with forces in your foe's territory without an ROP in place. Also, if that is what happens, you're not supposed to be able to sign ROPs from then on.

 

[Scuffer]

I'm very sure I have read that you suffer some rep hit if your forces are in someone else's terrority when war is declared, but less than ROP rape. I don't know whether it damages your rep enough to prevent ROP in future, but I suppose it depends on how well you've behaved elsewhere too.

 

[Zakharov]

I'm very sure I have read that you suffer some rep hit if your forces are in someone else's terrority when war is declared, but less than ROP rape. I don't know whether it damages your rep enough to prevent ROP in future, but I suppose it depends on how well you've behaved elsewhere too.

Your rep is not a scaling measure. You either have it or you don't and once it's gone you can't get it back.

I can confirm that you will lose your rep if you declare with units in enemy territory, whether you have a ROP or not.

 

[Renata]

Wow thanks a lot, I'll put that to work. I however have some new ones to ask now

A) Is it to decrease pollution or just so you don't have to build hospitals and can make more cities?

All of the above, but the biggest argument is the tile-use argument, in my opinion: you can use more of your territory earlier if you space your cities closer. With wide spacing, you might only be working 2/3 of your tiles for most of the game -- so much waste, especially if the territory is good!

B) 2 workers per town ... do you make them off of every town you can get a spare pop point off, or generally out of 2-3 high food pumpers? Sounds like a good idea (work now reap later always works) but as I see it, it does hinder your settler prod. How do you make up for it?

Since settlers take both lots of food and (relative to workers) lots of shields to produce, they're best produced in towns that have a good supply of both. Generally this means low-corruption towns producing more than 2 surplus food per turn, especially if the town also has a granary. Workers can be produced almost anywhere, since they take only one population point and at worst ten turns.

The following are good places to produce workers:
- towns that are capped at size 6 or 12 until you can build an aqueduct or hospital
- fast-growing but corrupt towns that would otherwise require specialists to keep happy
- towns with little growth potential, such as tundra or desert towns -- build a worker every time the town reaches its maximum population

For other towns, including the ones producing settlers, the question of when or whether to build a worker becomes more complicated. I have a few rules I try to stick to, like trying not to drop a town below the population required to work all of its 'special' tiles. (I don't want to build a worker in a size 4 town that's working a cow, a lake fish, and two mined fur/river tiles for half the production and gold in my empire, for example. I'll wait until the town hits size 5.) I've also found that waiting for a little growth (in towns with any growth potential) before building a worker can pay off surprisingly well down the road in terms of production and commerce, often without compromising the total number of workers produced. Most of those rules get chucked if I find that I'm falling behind in tile development, though.

C) What I meant by 13 is that I believe I play too vaguely, and since my mind bugs me to comparing this to chess, I find it problematic to try and do many things not as well as one thing that puts you up top. I guess I was answered well enough by Mr Zakh though.

Most maps will reward you if you have a strong focus on your goals from the beginning. In short, if you're playing a tiny pangaea as the Iroquois, that means straight to horseback riding, lots of barracks and Mounted Warriors, exactly enough cities and workers to start conquest and keep it rolling -- and nothing else. In most other situations you will have to find some sort of balance, but the general principle still stands: build what you need and only what you need, and do it as efficiently as possible.

D) Does offensive units value - AI point of view - is enough so I should put swordsmen/archers in my core towns for MP, and the AI will be fooled into thinking I'm too strong to be attacked?

I've played entire games without ever building a defensive unit -- in fact, it's my general practice unless the game will go past replacement parts, at which point I generally break down and build some muskets or riflemen to eventually upgrade to infantry. I frequently leave entire continents of cities empty of defenders once my armies are on the rampage, and if I'm still sharing a continent with an AI civ, I will only defend my border cities once I'm in Republic. I play Emperor level very comfortably, and have almost never paid a significant price for playing that way.

Why is that? First off, the AI is not wrong when it estimates attackers more highly than defenders. Six cavalry playing zone defense on a 50-tile island can defend against a typical AI "invasion" of two medieval infantry, a musket and a cavalry better than ten muskets spread out two to a town can manage. Furthermore, a civilization with lots of attackers can put on much more of a hurting on the counterattack, and will lose fewer tile improvements to pillaging.

Second, the AI targeting algorithms leave much to be desired. If I defend my border towns and leave the rest empty -- even if the border defenders are weak and few -- the AI will invariably go for the empty towns. Generally this leaves their stack of doom stranded in no-man's land once I force the war by asking them to leave. My attackers can then wipe out the whole force before they ever get the chance to do any damage.

I've started many wars with a settler/def-infantry drop on strategic ressources tiles, and it did work for me a number of times in regent. The case has not yet happened to me lately, and I was wondering wether or not I should repeat the feat at higher levels, and if I should consider putting it to use for luxuries as well.

It's always good policy to cut off access to strategic resources. You can do it with explorers, too (pillaging), if the location is not accessible to capture by other means. Luxuries I don't usually bother with -- too many tiles to deal with.

Renata

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Again, thanks a lot guys, I'll leap up to emperor whenever I have time to play again (exams coming >< ). With all that, I think I'll be up for a challenge, it shouldn't take over 5 games until I get a conclusively good game :Cool:

With Renata's post, I'm all answered: I used cavalry-like units to attack invaders, though I never really thought about zone D on colonies and the places that are not in the "red-hot frontline". I also meant exactly that with the worker production question: let a city grow a few points and build one, then make some out of capped towns. I also did mean exactly that by the offensive MP units in your non-front towns.

Thanks a huge lot.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

I don't like emperor only because I hate dealing with SOD's and don't find them on monarch nearly as much. Spending more than an hour on a single turn because you have to coordinate the destruction of a 30+ unit deep SOD is not my idea of fun.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

SOD ? Something of Doom ?

 

[Capt Buttkick]

SOD = Stack of Doom or Stack of Death.
Renata used the term without abbr. () in her post. The term relates to how the AI, not unwisely, stacks its units together when going on the offense. It's about the only thing about Civ3 I learnt from the AI that's a keeper (in moderation, of course).

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Your rep is not a scaling measure. You either have it or you don't and once it's gone you can't get it back.

I can confirm that you will lose your rep if you declare with units in enemy territory, whether you have a ROP or not.

Thanks
While I knew rep is either there or gone, I must admit that I can't remember the last time I played dastardly on purpose (except for the sgotm games ), so I'm not very updated on what causes a rep hit and what consequences it has.